Friday, July 10, 2015

Examu Cup 2015 Aquapazza brackets

It's that time again where I, as one of the last three remaining people in the entire USA who cares about Aquapazza, (shoutouts to Lark and Ernest, the two others) go over the Examu Cup 2015 Aquapazza brackets. Due to DFC and Nitro+ blasters, this year feels sort of light compared to last year. There's a lot of lesser-known players, and quite a few glaring omissions in the 24 teams lined up for AP this year. No mercy for the clowns using aliases, everyone gets twitter linked if I can figure out who they are. I'll try my best to give breakdowns, but these are my own opinions, so if your name is nobi and you are the only match I get wrong first round brackets cause I overestimate kaiser don't laugh at me ok. Also, assists are switchable, but when I list them at all I will usually list the assist the player is most comfortable with.

Analysis: Man, I want kouya to win. He's amazing, he loves the game, for the longest time I said he was equal or just slightly under OZ, but every time I see him in tournament or something he chokes and loses in silly ways. That and morikuma's our boy, so jin/morikuma team, but I wouldn't mind being wrong either way.

Analysis: Hahaha not making the same mistake again, although honestly I'd be biased to any team OZ is on anyway. That being said, it is sad to see butter quit Aquapazza to fully focus on trying to beat GO1 in Shana mirrors. :V

So despite losing 16 spots and some shuffling and departing of old names, the character distribution is still more or less the same as last year. I guess the biggest change is the Touka culling, which honestly I am not surprised about in the slightest. That being said, I guess it's time to address some notable gaps. First off, butter Konomi...the ever present era of OZ and butter has ended because of Shana mirrors. I'm not bitter, really. Second, because of butter's disappearance, nobi has joined OZ, and key has no teammate. I hope it's just that and that he'll make LCQ with someone. Third, GO1 and KOG, always a staple to play every single freaking game in existence, are missing (because they are going to EVO I can't believe I forgot since I'm going too :V). Finally, takakun and nao (katakana nao, not hiragana nao) both seem to have moved on to Nitro+, or maybe they couldn't qualify...but nao was an extremely strong Touka, one of the best...

Edit: So actually looking at some of the qualifiers (a lot of them have helpful brackets), I see Key and Butter entered a qualifier! And they lost...to 568's team! Who then lost to hinoelf and GJM lol. The tourney winner comments actually have hinoelf thanking 568 and maruo for their hard work. But that means we'll probably see Key and Butter in LCQ at least, which I'm thankful for.

Double Edit: Lark suggested I do a full bracket since Japan seems to "enjoy" my "rigorous scientific analyses"...but honestly without knowing the LCQ it's sort of hard. Like if key/butter show up in a bracket that just ruins half if not all the predictions for that bracket...plus I'm going to EVO so it's not like I will be keeping that up to date either.

EVO Edit: My flight is in a couple hours and I am very tired but this is my full bracket prediction. There's a lot more guesswork put into these than round 1, maybe I can do a thorough analysis at EVO, just right now, too tired. Also, a huge disclaimer is if butter/Key team is one of the two LCQ. If they are in bracket 1, I would have them win every match and win the bracket but still get third overall. If they are in bracket 2, I would have them win until they get to nobi/OZ.